Closer than ever: reaching for the stars.

When a government withdraws it creates space for visionaries: Space flight is now a private matter.

A view of the Blue Planet: priceless. In the true meaning of the word. At least up until now.

"Ground Control to Major Tom: Take your protein pills and put your helmet on …“ David Bowie sang these lines back in 1969, expressing our fascination with space. To experience space live, to see our planet from the outside, is a dream that so far has only come true for a few lucky individuals.

Apart from professional astronauts, who were paid handsomely for the pleasure, only very few privateers have managed to climb to an altitude of 100 km. That is roughly where space starts. However, it was in the past a very expensive pastime. The seven space tourists who traveled beyond the constraints of our planet between 2001 and 2009 had to bring the considerable sum of $ 20,000,000 to $ 40,000,000 to the table. But that bought them a 12 to 14 day stay on board the ISS. These prices let the $250,000 for a space flight with Virgin Galactic, a company owned by Richard Branson, appear like an absolute bargain.

Two other aspirants are contending alongside Richard Branson for the lead position in the market for space tourism: One of them is Amazon boss Jeff Bezos with his company Blue Origin and the other is Elon Musk with Space X. But it is not only about space tourism.

The search for a new supply provider for the ISS has been running ever since NASA abandoned its SpaceShuttle program. The successful candidate can look forward to a seven-year contract worth billions of dollars. Branson, Bezos and Musk have another contender when it comes to supply flights to the ISS: Bigelow Aerospace. Bigelow can be disregarded in terms of space tourism, but not when it comes to supply flights. The spotlight is currently on Elon Musk whose reusable unmanned carrier rocket "Falcon 9" recently returned safely to land on Earth after a flight into space. It landed on a floating platform 300 nautical miles of the coast of the USA(!). Musk appears in general to be very optimistic. In addition to his announcement of sending an unmanned flight to Mars in 2018 and the first humans in 2020, he recently published the first price list for his transport flights. Musk is undoubtedly the man of the moment. Whether that is enough remains to be seen. At the latest in two years' time. Whoever wins this race will at first dominate the market. Who would not want to experience weightlessness and see our planet from the outside? Hardly anybody. A huge market. When THOMSEN GROUP develops strategies for aerospace companies to become market leaders it shows once again that the market competence of THOMSEN GROUP is always good for surprises. So: "Beam me up!"